UGent MMLab

The MultiMedia Lab (MMLab) home base lies in the Faculty of Applied Sciences, and in the Electronics and Information Systems Department. MMLab does basic, applied and contract research in co-operation with companies. Furthermore, MMLab regularly carries out scientific service contracts for companies and government agencies.

Research domains

The most important research topics for MMLab are:

Advanced video applications:
- Development and exploitation of a scalable video compression technologies;
- Motion estimation and compensation;
- Region of Interest-based video compression;
- Automatic adaptation of multimedia data to varying user environments;
  Development of iDTV applications (amongst others MHP - Multimedia Home Platform).
Mobile multimedia applications:
- Reduction of the impact of network loss on the quality of multimedia presentations (amongst others through adaptive coding and decoding, in function of varying network characteristics);
- Rendering of multimedia data on (limited) mobile terminals;
- Transparent transmission of multimedia sessions, between different devices;
- Hardware and software co-design for embedded multimedia systems.
Standardisation of multimedia systems and applications:
- Digital Item Declaration, Digital Item Adaptation, Digital Item Processing (within the framework of MPEG-21 standardisation);
- MPEG-21 Scalable Video Coding (SVC);
- MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (H.264/AVC);
- Archiving and development of digital multimedia archives.

Time-window for commercial use

MMLab focuses on the one hand on basic research, such as the development of new algorithms for the coding and decoding of multimedia data. This research then serves as a basis for application-oriented research, such as for instance scalable video compression, which finds application in iDTV (interactive digital television).

This basic research, the application-oriented research and any scientific services that are provided, are a reflection of three time windows in the commercial use of such research results:

The basic research is of a fundamental nature, but always driven by demand. The research results lead to concrete applications in the long term, for instance 10 years.
The application-oriented research builds further on the expertise that has been gained in basic research. It focuses on commercial applicability in the shorter term, for instance three to five years. In case of scientific services, these are almost entirely the result of consulting, which is immediately exploitable.

Projects

MMLab has been a partner in more than 20 research projects in the last few years, which have been financed by:

The European Union (Framework Programs FP5 and FP6 of the European Commission);
The Belgian Federal government (Federal Science Policy);
The Flemish government (IWT - Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science & Technology in Flanders ; FWO - Fund for Scientific Research in Flanders);
The University of Ghent.

Besides this, MMLab has concluded bilateral contracts with approximately 15 companies, ranging from SMEs to multinational enterprises.

Website: www.mmlab.be